Ven Says:
Doubt (Vicikitcha) does not mean doubt.
What it means is ignoring the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.
Doubt about re-birth, Nibbana is not considered as doubt.
It comes under the investigation.
Ignoring re-birth and Nibbana considered as doubt.

Ven. Says:
If a person listen to the Dhamma with attention, he is in the first Jhana.
He specially mention the word Savitakka, and Savikara. (Please compare this to Vitakka and Vikara)
At this moment his mind is free from (temporary) attachment, aversion.
Hence he possess Piti and Sukha.

SarathW wrote:Ven. Says:
If a person listen to the Dhamma with attention, he is in the first Jhana.
He specially mention the word Savitakka, and Savikara. (Please compare this to Vitakka and Vikara)
At this moment his mind is free from (temporary) attachment, aversion.
Hence he possess Piti and Sukha.

I don't know how that statement matches with this extract from the suttas :

"There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal.

"Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within and without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal..."

========
Five factors are abandoned in the first jhana, and with five is it endowed. There is the case where, in a monk who has attained the first jhana, sensual desire is abandoned, ill will is abandoned, sloth & torpor is abandoned, restlessness & anxiety is abandoned, uncertainty is abandoned. And there occur directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, & singleness of mind. It's in this way that five factors are abandoned in the first jhana, and with five it is endowed."

SarathW wrote:Ven. says that the Sati (mindfulness) is not the remembering(knowledge).
For example a medical student has the knowledge but an experience doctor will have the Sati (It is not only the knowledge)

That reminds me of a paper I recently read by Patrick Kearney on sati, where he makes much the same point. The whole paper is worth reading, but here is the conclusion:

Returning to Ānanda’s description of mindfulness, we can begin to understand what he means:

"She has mindfulness; possessing supreme mindfulness and discrimination,
recalling and recollecting what was done and said long ago." (Sekha Sutta M53)

Mindfulness is linked to memory, in the sense that experience is memory. Let’s consider our experienced yoga teacher looking at a posture. She sees the posture in its depth and subtleties. To understand the posture in front of her she does not have to seek to recall all the lessons and training sessions she has gone through; she simply sees it, now. But that seeing contains her memories going back 30 years, and these memories manifest as present wisdom. Because of this depth, in simply seeing the posture the yoga teacher understands the posture.

This seeing and understanding which is contained within mindfulness has ethical implications. Once the brāhmaṇa Saṅgārava asked the Buddha about the nature of memory.

"Master Gotama, what is the cause and condition why sometimes even those things [mantā]
that have been recited over a long period are not clear, let alone those that have not been recited?
What is the cause and condition why sometimes those things that have not been recited over a long period are clear,
let alone those that have been recited?" (Saṅgārava Sutta, Bhojjhaṅga Saṃyutta)

India at the Buddha’s time was an oral culture, where all knowledge was memorised. Education involved training the memory, so there was a great interest among intellectuals about the workings of memory. Saṅgārava wants to understand how memory functions. Why are some things remembered, and some not? The Buddha turns his question around and speaks of memory in a deeper sense, that of mindfulness.

"Brāhmaṇa, when one lives with a mind possessed and oppressed by sensual
obsession [kāma-rāga], and does not understand realistically the way out from
arisen sensual obsession, at that time one neither understands nor sees
realistically one’s own good, or the good of others, or the good of both. Then even
those things that have been recited over a long period are not clear, let alone those
that have not been recited.

Brāhmaṇa, when one lives with a mind possessed and oppressed by hatred
[vyāpāda] … stiffness-&-torpor [thīna-middha] … restlessness-&-worry [uddhaccakukkucca]
… doubt [vicikicchā] and does not understand realistically the way out
from arisen doubt, at that time one neither understands nor sees realistically
one’s own good, or the good of others, or the good of both. Then even those
things that have been recited over a long period are not clear, let alone those that
have not been recited."

Asked about memory, the Buddha replies in terms of how it comes about that one does not “see and understand realistically one’s own good, or the good of others, or the good of both.” In a discourse on the five hindrances he links memory with meditation and the ethical sensitivity that meditation develops. The link between memory, meditation and ethics is mindfulness. Mindfulness is not simply concerned with experience and the wisdom that experience brings; it is concerned with the experience and wisdom that allows us to live a good life, a life in accordance with dharma.

Kind wishes,
katavedi

“But, Gotamī, when you know of certain things: ‘These things lead to dispassion, not to passion; to detachment, not to attachment; to diminution, not to accumulation; to having few wishes, not to having many wishes; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to socializing; to the arousing of energy, not to indolence; to simple living, not to luxurious living’ – of such things you can be certain: ‘This is the Dhamma; this is the Discipline; this is the Master’s Teaching.’”

Thanks Katavedi.
Yes that is what Ven. is talking about.
He gave a good example.
A person with vulgar mind remember a vulgar joke when he here it first time but will not remember the Dhamm verse the same way.

Wonderful Dhamma talk.
Ven. says that the idea of the meditation is not to stop thinking (eg: Asannasatta).
It appears this is dangerous and wrong kind of meditation.
He suggest that we develop the perception of light (Aloka ) to overcome this problem.
Meditation is about the mind development so as to eliminate attachment, aversion and ignorance.

Ven. says:
Eliminating first three fetter alone will not suffice to become a Sotapanna.
Following Noble Eightfold Path is essential.
Fetters are the sign of the sickness.
Noble Eightfold Path is the medicine.

In the following Dhamma discussion Ven. W A argues that first precept include not only the killing but harming someone or blocking the ability to have a good life.
This means breaking someone's limbs also come under the first precept.
This may not be the generally accepted teaching.

Lal wrote:I have been asked by Ven. Sudithadeera (who is a disciple of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero) to join this discussion group. I have a website: https://puredhamma.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; that is built on the material that I learned from the Waharaka Thero. I would be happy to provide my input to any specific questions as well.
With metta, Lal

I had happened upon this website before finding this thread and read through some of the materials. I found this article and the series connected to it insightful and helpful, and I was unaware of the connection, thank you!

Now there is another monk in the lineage.
His name is Ven. Valasmulle Abaya.
His teaching is very good.
However, this lineage has some non-Theravada ideas. (Gandhabba is waiting for re-birth after one's death etc)
He also said your mother and father is the people who donated sperm and the egg when it comes to heinous kamma.
These are minor issues for me considering his other teachings.

Another interesting point here is he said that he has met some people who practice Islam prayer attained some kind of Jhana. (Aloka)
He attributes this to Christians as well.
The following video is in Sinhala language.